


Bees on the Silk Road

by vertigo_lane



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Bees, Blood, Gen, Gore, Hostage Situations, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mutilation, Out of Character, mentions of cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-06-21 03:41:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15548808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vertigo_lane/pseuds/vertigo_lane
Summary: The unforgiving July sun beat down on the sweat soaked brow and temples framed by strands of dark curls dripping with dense moisture.Boise, Idaho, was so hot early in the month that the only relief one could catch was solemnly dependent on how vigorously one swung one's hoe or shovel, or scythe – the harder you swung, the higher were the chances of getting that sweet sweet whiff of phantom air.This is just temporary,he thought.I don't belong here. Not really.──────────────────────Ever wonder what it'd be like if Eliot had gone through the same motions as everyone else? Like, getting his memories wiped, having his entire personality revamped, getting new shiny name,an actual job– you know, the usual?A take on what could've been, had Eliot met the same fate as most of his friends... that is, before the Monster finds him.





	Bees on the Silk Road

**Author's Note:**

> partially inspired by the long, boiling hot weekends spent in the countryside of Northern Ukraine, tending to weeds and other potatoes – and episode 2.05 of Torchwood (ironically, titled "Adam" lol), which deals with the themes of memory alteration

The unforgiving July sun beat down on the sweat soaked brow and temples framed by strands of dark curls dripping with dense moisture.

  
_Boise, Idaho_ , was so hot early in the month that the only relief one could catch was solemnly dependent on how vigorously one swung one's hoe or shovel, or scythe – the harder you swung, the higher were the chances of getting that sweet sweet whiff of phantom air.

  
_This is just temporary,_ he thought. _I don't belong here. Not really._

 

Or perhaps swinging the hoe wasn’t the best idea, especially when one was hilling such fragile things as tomatoes. Three sad beaten down plants laid out to the side – victims of his sloppy gardening skills. He oughtn’t do that, that was _very_ unbecoming.

The great thing was that it all would be over soon. Another day or two – if he was lucky, even that same night! – and he would be out of the perpetual hellscape that was the countryside and back to the comforts of the urban city lifestyle.

 

As sunlight relentlessly glared at them from its seat in zenith and Amanda Palmer screamed into his eardrums about not being ‘[the killing type](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO212ibBDTM)’ – something skipped by in the tall grass. He didn’t notice.

 

 _This. Is. Fine_ , he tried to convince himself. And yes, it was better than, say, removing weeds or working in the spot right next to the raspberry and gooseberry bushes – he still had a faint intricate web of scabs on his arms from working near their thorny branches.

It was better than tending to the cucumbers on the other side of the lot; invisible due to the coloring, cucumbers _too_ sported tiny spikes which was worse, because – splinters! _Treacherous cucumbers_ , he mused.

So, piling earth on plants wasn’t all that bad. The problem was the _dried_ earth which didn’t give under the metal edge of the hoe. He was ready to drop on his knees and start digging with his gloveless fingers. What a great idea! He would do exactly that!

 

The heat was really getting to him…

 

Something skipped in the grass, unnoticed, once again.

 

He regretted not bringing at least a cap. If somebody were to come by, right in that moment and drop an egg on his head – they’d have a nice meal of scrambled eggs, he was certain of it.

 _It’ll all be worth it_ , he continued to convince himself as he let the hoe hollowly drop into the grass and squatted down to scoop some dirt and manually place it under a tomato shrub. Yes, the earth was getting into every crevice of his being at that point, but he delighted in the single idea – that if suffering through the nightmare of working on a farm for the past three weeks would pay off and get him that one double deal – he wouldn’t have to worry about rent for nearly the rest of the year!

 

He thought he saw something fly by, but dismissed it. Until he felt it hit him _hard_ right into the shoulder blade. The impact shifted him off balance almost sending him toppling down. Bewildered he looked round, trying to locate the object of offence.

He was reaching down for it, when another one struck him square in the jaw, knocking out one of his earphones.

 

A potato. He was being attacked by _potatoes_ , of all things.

 

“Aye!”

Ripping out the remaining earphone, he turned to face the source of the distress. It was one of the farmhands, older by decades, higher in ranks – _of some unspoken hierarchy_ – a generic middle-aged white dude, bald spot and questionable hygiene included.

He didn’t bother getting acquainted with everybody on the farm, but he thought the man’s name started with an ‘I’… _or was it a ‘J’?_

“Aye, Alan!” the older man called out again. Without minding to get a response, he continued, still yelling: “There’s a wasps’ nest in the shitter!”

He wasn’t sure what he had to do with the information and was about to ask, but was immediately cut off.

“Go! Deal with ‘em!”

The situation didn’t get any less confusing. He neared the man, so there was no need for unnecessary screaming.

 

“Excuse me, but I’m not Alan,” he said politely.

“Huh?”

“I’m Adam.”

“So?”

 “And you need Alan – the _beekeeper_?”

“And?”

_This is exhausting._

“And I’m _Adam_ ; _not_ the beekeeper.”

 

The man seemed to be seriously considering his words for a moment, and then:

“You think I fucking care?! Just go deal with the damn pests and don’t ever talk back!”

Getting a mix of musty breath smell from the final aspirated ‘ _k_ ’ sound, coupled with the gravity of his situation, what he’d been assigned to do – those weren’t _happy people_ things.

 

Not having much choice, he dusted his palms on the denim trousers and headed in the direction of the only outhouse on the premises.

Without earphones in, he could somewhat hear – only slightly muffled by the hum of the machinery – the sound of grasshoppers dwelling in the tall grass near-by. It all would’ve been even nice if not for being on the verge of a heat-infused delirium.  _With a potato? And wasps?!_

He wasn’t entirely sure if all of that was totally real.

 

Nearing the conveniently-sized, wooden construction he made sure it was locked on the hinge, so that no-one was currently occupying it. Removing the hinge, he braced himself by taking a deep deep breath and opened the door.

 

“ _Goddammit…_ ”

* * *

 

“I think– No, I’m _certain_ , those were bees! Can you believe it?!”

Smoke rose dispassionately from the tip of Joana’s cigarette as he retold the tale of discovering what turned out to be not a _wasps’_ nest, but apparently a _bees’_ nest. The woman leaning on the fence beside him, in the shadow of a grand mulberry tree, didn’t look all that impressed or particularly engrossed into the discussion of insects.

 

“OK, so bees,” she inquired to fill the awkward ambience that had settled, “what’s the problem? Can’t you just, you know, get rid of them all the same?”

“But that’s the thing!” he raised both his hands up in a helpless gesture. “That is the thing, Jo! One just doesn’t go about, killing _bees_.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re valid?!” he felt oddly passionate about the subject. To gain some semblance of self-control, he added somewhat timidly: “I-I think, they are, at least.”

 

For a while, they both remained under the shade of the tree, even as Joana had finished her cigarette and stubbed it into the flat metal section of the fence; he didn’t smoke himself, but didn’t mind it either. He could almost get used to it – become a passive smoker, maybe? He found the wispy white tendrils of gas and vapor surprisingly soothing to look at.

“So, what you gonna do?” Joana having nothing else to do, posed the utmost reasonable question – _what was he going to do really?_

“Well, since risking my neck by trying to refuse Ilijah and just do nothing is out of the question,” through her, he found out the old man’s name; Joana had seen him earlier walking around, muttering to himself something about inflicting physical damage upon someone – this had been the ice-breaker for their current time-out under the mulberries. “And, because the beekeeper’s out of town, and I have no clue how to deal with bees without obliterating the entire bee population in the state of Idaho,” he took a breather. “Anyway, I’m doing it. But! I need some information first.”

“Huh, are you planning on visiting our ‘local’ library?” she made air quotes with her fingers, “Good luck. See you in three days, I guess.”

“Ugh,” it seemed that the mere word ‘ _library_ ’ made him shrink a little, internally. “I was thinking… Is it true that the head of the complex is the only one with access to the Internet or something?”

Now Joana saw what this was all about.

“–Also, you’ve mentioned something about the head being your cousin once removed?” he trailed off. “So, I-I thought, maybe we could ask–”

“You mean, _I_ could ask?” to his affirmative nod, Joana just sighed and muttered: “It’s good thing you’re pretty… Alright, wait here.”

 

With that, the woman had disappeared for solid five minutes in the hut at the center of the lot. The next time she reappeared, Joana was bearing – gleaming in the sunlight – a tiny silver key.

“Think I can trust you with this?” she handed him the key which he took graciously, nodding once more. “And, Crawford?” at that he looked up at her, beaming. “Remember: you owe me. Now, go! Save the bees – save the world, or something...”

 

The smile on his face was close to straining the facial muscles – that was up until Joana rounded the corner and, once again, exited the picture. The second the two weren’t visible to one another, the corners of his mouth dropped down as if to meet his true creator – Lucifer himself.

 _Shit_ , he silently cursed. _That is not what I need right now._ He couldn’t afford to make any close friends here. If anything Jo was an exception to the rule, only because of how intimidating she was during the town meetings. She had almost immediately taken him under her wing, when it’d turned out that it was just an odd job for him and he’d never seen a plough in his life before.

He really didn’t mind Joana; she was dry-witted, but fun-loving, and confident, and brash; in another life, perhaps, they would have been good friends – _partners in crime, so to speak_  – for years to come. If only he didn’t have to leave. If only…

 

He entered the two-story building just on the outskirts of the premises they had been working on, and unlocked the inner doors with the provided key which led him to the head’s office. There on the flimsy plastic table sat a surprisingly new and sleek monitor; later, as he went to boot the thing, he saw that the system unit itself was the specimen of the early 2000s. _Just great._

The very first thing he did after opening up the browser, was search for: _wasp nests vs bee nests difference_

After looking for a while at the search results, comparing various images of the two kinds of nests, he concluded that, _Yes! I_ was _right; those were, in fact, actual bees!_

His next search was: _beehive removal –_ as an afterthought he added: _without killing the bees_

 

Ten minutes straight he had spent looking up random facts about bees; clicking from link to link, going from one page to another, site after site. This was turning out to be quite entertaining.

Only after learning that, apparently, “ _Honey bees can’t see red_ ” – it hit him that he probably didn’t have much time, before Joana would return. And there was still some other stuff he wanted to look up, besides the precious fuzzy beasts.

 

He swiftly typed out the right words; mostly relying on certain muscle memory, he went to all the familiar sources, found amongst the dodgy ads the correct link for downloading and clicked it.

He had decided to just print out the necessary information on the bees and read it out later on – _he hoped Jo wouldn’t mind_ – now, though, he sat back and, with an impartial gaze, watched the little green circle going round. _The downloading was in progress..._

* * *

 

Right as he had powered off the computer and, with a satisfied grin on his face, was busy shuffling the printed pages – the doors to the office opened with a flourish; Jo had arrived.

“So, how are the bees? You not done yet?”

He stood up and proudly presented his research:

“All done,” he was smiling longer than, perhaps, in the three previous weeks combined. “Did you know that,” he quoted directly from the sheets of paper in his hand: “ _It takes about 21 days for a new bee to go from the egg stage to working in the hive_ ”? Isn’t it neat?”

 

Joana’s response was a silent and deeply unimpressed one. She sighed at his almost child-like excitement over insects, and instead said:

“Look, there’s sort of like… a party? At Molly’s, this evening,” she’d started to regret their idea to invite the guy to their late mid-summer's gathering. The guy was acting _odd_. Or maybe it was something about the bees in particular. _Jesus_ , she didn’t realize bees could change people _so much_ and so fast. “You could come by, you know. Since, I’ve heard, you are leaving tomorrow?”

 

At her questioning tone, he mustered up the perfect imitation of a sorrowful expression:

“Yeah, tomorrow…” he sighed, “I really wish I could, but as it turns out, the best time to deal with the little guys is the nighttime.”

She must have looked genuinely mildly upset, as he added:

“But, I’ll see what I can do,” he half-promised, “Now, though, I need to go to the farmer’s market – for some extra supplies.”

“Well, then,” she graciously stepped out of the way to let him outside, “good luck with your bees!” Joana shouted to his retreating back. He threw a short wave in her direction and a toothy smile, which seemed to disperse the sour mood.

 

The day was really taking a turn for the better.

* * *

 

That evening, having dealt with the bees – _with no casualties, mind_ – he did, after all, drop by the house of the landlord’s daughter, Molly, where he was treated to a shot of local moonshine.

As a rule, he didn’t drink much, it was much more lucrative to stay sober these days. But the suspicious liquor went remarkably well with him – even though Jo had _sworn_ , here folks made the damn thing out anything as long as it had an ability to rot – and, apparently, drinking without visibly cringing was the easiest way to gain the respect of the locals.

 

Now, he was strolling down the sparsely lit, unpaved walkway – his papers on the bees under one armpit, hands in the trouser pockets.

It was a fine night.

Perhaps, due to the faint buzz of the moonshine in his system or just the realization that this was his last night on the farmland – he didn’t know for sure – but he was simply content with life. He couldn’t wait to get back to his usual vocation; return to his rented apartment, get plunged back into the traffic, and other commodities of the big city. Still, he thought he _just might_ miss a little the oxygen-saturated air, the dirt roads and the nature itself.

 

The district that he was currently nearing was not the one he had arrived at originally, three weeks ago. This was another, more remote, complex with semi-abandoned houses and little sheds, and barns; just viable enough to have electricity still running through its power lines.

Every other night, he stayed in this one particular house on the edge of the district; not returning every night to his room in the hostel provided by the farm complex, earned him some lewd remarks from the landlord – he didn’t mind it as long as people thought he had at least _some_  semblance of personal life.

 

He pulled out the key he’d found on his first day here – in trunk of the tree, a little to the north of the house, – just as he’d been instructed. Unlocking the door, he could hear the shuffling from the inside, followed by a whine, like that of a big dog or some other lumbering creature.

Shutting the door behind him, he, once again, scanned through the pages on bees with fascination – particularly, the parts about the healing properties of bee venom, as he fully entered into the interior of the main living space and turned on the lights.

 

“You know,” he said, not looking up, “Going in, I thought it's gonna to be another boring job, just like any other… Turns out, it’s also a  _learning_ opportunity! And learning about the bees? _Amazing!_ ”

He was still engrossed into his reading as he carefully stepped around the armchair; it had to be pushed from its usual place to give way for the only radiator which wasn’t located under one of the three windows in the room.

Actually most of the furniture was moved at least six feet away from the battery – he imagined it was a bit inconvenient navigating the now clattered room, but _oh well._

 

He dropped down into the armchair, smiling a broad sardonic smile, as he addressed his silent companion again:

“How come you never mentioned that beekeeping’s so fun, Alan?”

 

He finally looked up towards the wall with the radiator on it, where a man – on the wrong side of sixty, of average height, but still somehow lanky – sat on the floor, both wrists, behind his back, chained taught to one of the pipes, to the point where red ringlets started to form from the friction of the handcuffs. He was mostly naked save for a pair of boxers to preserve some semblance of dignity. His stationary feet – bent in unnatural angles – were turning a sickly yellow hue.

 

“You’re so quiet today,” he spoke again and moved closer to the older man. “What’s the matter?”

In answer more muffled whining – mostly due to the snuggly wound band around the lower half of the man's face. Removing it seemed exhausting – the last time the experience involved lots of screaming and begging; it was a tedious ordeal really.

 

“I can remove it,” he compromised, calmly, “if you swear not to yell like you did before, alright?”

After an affirmative nod, he loosened the cloth obscuring the man’s mouth – the moment it was off, the sharp guttural scream burst out of Alan’s lungs. _Ugh, what else was he expecting?_

“Alan,” he tried to reason, speaking over the persistent, but ultimately useless, screaming, “there’s no need for this – we’ve discussed it already,” he squatted down to the man's level, elbows on his knees. “This is _your_ place, after all, isn’t it? You know, better than anyone, that calling for help from here is futile.”

At that screams turned into pathetic whimpering.

Up close he could see the copious amounts of sweat adorning the older man’s body. It must have been just as hot during the day on the inside – if not more. The dust of the soiled floors had mixed with three days’ old sweat, and piss, and excrement – it all created a rather grotesque picture, but he almost didn’t mind it, unlike the _smell_. Putrid and acidic – would be perhaps the best way to describe it.

 

“It’s Adam, innit?” finally the old man had produced coherent, yet gruff words. “Why– why are you doing this to me? What d’you need from me? Please just–”

“It’s a living,” he interrupted his words. “A career, I suppose. Nothing personal, honest.”

 

Alan made a sound, trudging on a humorless laugh.

“You an assassin or something?”

“Well, technically, _yes_ – a fancier way of saying it, but yeah – a man for hire, you could say.”

“So, why haven’t you offed me yet, huh?” Alan was growing agitated. “It’s been days! What more do you want from me?!”

 

To Alan’s regret the provocation didn’t seem to faze his captor. On the contrary, he brightened up and cheerfully snapped his fingers:

“About that!” he stood up and started looking for the necessary tools. “I’ve managed to renegotiate for the double deal!”

“Wha–”

“You see, initially, I should’ve just stabbed you in the face and been done with it. But! There’s one little detail in the contract that has caught my attention,” he looked the man straight in the eyes. “The folks who ordered you don’t really care what happens to your body afterwards… So they've let me have it!

“So, now, after your death, some parts of you will go to Vancouver, some – to this nice quaint village in the south of Belarus– And, you know what? Now that I think about it – it's only your liver that'll remain in states, _huh_.”

 

He picked up a pocketknife from one of the shelves and unfolded it. The sight of the sharp object made Alan try and scramble, if not for the inability to use his legs. The broken ankles were a rush decision, almost plagiarized – there had been a showing of _Misery_ in the local theatre about two weeks ago; he loved that movie.

 

“So, you just gonna harvest my organs and sell them to some pricks all over the world?”

He realized, Alan was probably struggling to find some ways of prolonging his time, so he decided to humor him:

“You have no idea how many there are– misanthropic, elitist _pricks,_ with too much spare cash, on the Silk Road… And all of them are clamoring to taste the real human flesh,” he sighed contently. “Amateur cannibalism – so endearing.”

 

That must’ve raised the last remaining hairs on the old man’s head, because the constant whining turned into a full on sobbing fest.

“What, you hoped after your death your body would be donated to science – or perhaps, you wanted to be the organ donor instead?” he snorted. “With questionable medical history and substance abuse – Alan, let’s be honest here, you’d be a shitty donor... Besides,” he added, “I’m a terrible surgeon.”

 

With these words he made a not too wide arc and swung, striking one of the man’s meaty calves with the pocketknife. Smoothly, it went half-way down, when the onslaught suddenly ceased.

“ _Dammit_ ,” he cursed, standing up and heading somewhere to the side; the knife left there, protruding from the jiggly unshaven part of Alan’s leg.

 

He reemerged from the neighboring room, with two buckets full of something chunky and misty-white – these were bucket filled to the brim with huge pieces of ice.

“I’ve almost forgotten about these,” he said, setting the buckets down on the floor. “I've frozen some in advance – a bit cocky of me, I know, but I got the good deal after all, so…”

 

He was about to grab the knife again to start cutting out a nice slice out of the man’s calf, when Alan, bleary-eyed from shock, chimed in, mixing threats with pleading:

“Please, don’t do this,” he muttered, reeling in pain. “Please, Adam, don’t do it – _for yourself!_ ”

 

He looked at Alan quizzically, almost comically cocking his head to the side.

Seeing that the diversion had somewhat worked, the man continued, desperately:

“Yes, yes! For your own sake, Adam! You have some much ahead of you… Don’t throw it all away.”

 

There was a moment’s silence, only filled with Alan’s rigid breathing. And then–

 

“Actually, that’s not my real name,” with those words, “Adam” pulled out the knife, giving way for a quick stream of scarlet liquid to start polling on the dirty floors. “That would be too unprofessional, don't you think,” he inserted the blade once more and forcefully pushed it around to get a nice, sizeable chunk of meat.

Perhaps, going for the calves wasn’t the best idea. He thought, he’d heard somewhere that the areas with more muscle mass produced tougher meat; but he couldn’t afford to just go for a thigh and risk bleeding Alan out immediately.

 

Finally, freeing a good piece from the stray tissues, he tossed the meat in one of the buckets. It made a dull, metallic noise; whimpers grew louder.

 

“Then,” Alan’s voice was strained by the efforts to catch an even breath, “what is,” he inhaled, “just tell me, what’s your name. What you got to lose…”

“Well,” he wiped his hands on his shirt, instantly regretting it; he was meaning to ask Jo for an apron, but didn’t have time to come up with a feasible enough excuse, “I _could_ tell you,” he contemplated, twirling the knife between his fingers, trying to figure out where to strike next, “but, Alan, I genuinely think you just don’t deserve to know.”

He knelt again and was aiming for the solar plexus this time; the action sent the older man into an uncontrollable tremor.

 

“You see,” he continued, touching the tip of the knife to the sweat-soaked skin and then taking it back, “the people who hired me, they know some stuff. Some really bad stuff you did.”

The last remark had almost halted the trembling for a second as Alan fleetingly realized what was going on.

“So this is some fucked-up _Robin Hood_ shit, huh? Where you go round, completing others’ revenge sprees? And you probably think you hold some higher moral ground in all this, huh? Tell me it isn’t exactly so!”

 

With a thoroughly disinterested expression on his face, he produced the most somber and mundane reply:

“Not really. They just pay me for it,” and he carefully started to cut open the other man’s chest, beginning at the solar plexus – right down to his belly-button. Ignoring the panicked shouts, he added: “And, before you ask, no, it doesn’t bring me any particular joy either. I just don't mind it, I guess.”

He made sure not to insert the sharp edge in too deep; just enough, so he could peel back some layers with minimal blood loss and get to the valuable parts.

 

Alan must have lost consciousness at some point; it was pleasantly quiet for a solid minute as he meticulously worked at removing all the unnecessary bits. Some of them, he concluded, wouldn’t fit into all the buckets, so he just threw shreds of Alan’s skin about the room.

He was _never_ becoming a surgeon.

 

During the entire process, the older man must’ve woken up a few times – to yelp something inaudible as he saw his own intestines, in long meaty ropes, being extracted from his own body. Then Alan would usually fall back into the momentary oblivion, while not “Adam” was left to wonder where the hell to fit the other man’s guts. _I should’ve thought this through_. This was quickly turning into one gory mess that knew no end nor a beginning.

 

They were both sitting in thick layer of blood; some of it started to cake on his clothes, he noticed, as he was busy trying to maneuver the slippery liver out of Alan’s frame. He considered finding a hammer to help with the rib cage, but thought better of it – the prospect of bone shards being added into the mess, _just no_ – and instead continued to cut bits and pieces here and there, adding them to the two buckets full of ice.

* * *

 

He had to work quickly before the ice had completely melted away in the July’s heat; he had settled that he’d take a couple of fingers with him as well. Besides, his associates, whom he had contacted earlier that day, would have already reached Caldwell at that point.

He just needed to find a cleaver or a saw – both of which he was sure he’d seen somewhere around – then change his bloodied work clothes and dispose of the fake ID that belonged to “ _Adam Crawford_ ” and be done with the state of Idaho for a long, unforeseeable future.

It was extremely convenient that no one really knew of the deceased beekeepers’ abode – one district over, away from the residential parts of the town. It was extremely convenient for him. It was all turning out almost too good to be true.

 

Setting the cold buckets full of raw meat, glistening varying shades of red in the lamplight – he moved to the veranda, to look for cleaver there.

The needed tools weren’t turning up anywhere still – he had no choice, but to abandon some of Alan’s more profitable parts behind.

 

In five minutes he’d changed into his own clean clothes that he’d stashed around the house days ago, and currently was struggling to find a box of matches or a lighter, when he thought he saw something, lurking, outside. It didn’t hurt to be vigilant in a situation like that.

 

Silently he picked up the unused hammer and just as carefully crept into the veranda once again. Past the ajar shutters he could see a figure. A relatively short figure – well, compared to him everyone seemed smaller by the considerable margin. Exhaling, he put the hammer down.

Generally, his policy was to avoid unpaid violence, if need be. Instead, he opted for a polite confrontation.

 

Stepping outside, into the moonlight, he zeroed in on the stranger who turned out to be a young woman, wearing – upon closer inspection – _a chainmail armor?_ Nevertheless, he went for the direct approach:

“Hi,” he tried to sound as non-threatening and debonair as he could for a man who had been rummaging around other person's entrails not even fiften minutes ago, “You alone here? Is everything alright? Do you need help?”

The barrage of questions was meant to come off as the ramblings of a concerned citizen.

 

The woman didn’t reply, instead just staring at him. He couldn’t see the expression on her face, but he could've sworn that she was smiling.

 

“If you need to make a call – I can bring my cellphone out here?”

Not getting any reply once again, he slowly backed away, pretending that the agreement had been settled and he just needed to pop into the house for a moment. The reality was that the stranger sincerely weirded him out; it was her lack of answers and all that gratuitous smiling.

 

He went inside, locking the doors, just in case. As he turned round, for the first time in a long long time, he was truly, unabashedly _startled_ – that same young woman was standing right there with him, inside the inner veranda, curiously looking at the mess in the living room.

Shaking off the initial shock and, for now, dismissing the thoughts of how exactly she got inside _before_ him – he was right behind the trespasser in two broad leaps.

His right arm curled around one of her temples, while the left one gripped the woman’s jaw. He jerked the parts of her head in a crisscross pattern – hearing the loud satisfying _crack_ of a broken neck – and momentarily let go. He anticipated the usual _thud_ of the lifeless body hitting the floor – only the that didn’t happen this time.

 

Once again, bewildered, he watched the woman clad in chainmail – her neck now twisted in an odd angle – as she remained standing right there, whereas she was supposed to be lying in a heap on the floor. For the first time the stranger spoke:

“You are no fun.”

 

Before he could respond, the woman’s eyes lit up like a pair of headlights. That same moment something inexplicable began to happen.

 

From the unseen crevices in the woman’s body rose some wispy, glowing, dust-like essence – it was levitating mid-air, towards him.

Suddenly, as if with a minute’s delay, he heard the sound of the lifeless body _finally_ dropping down into a heap.

The unknown essence still persisted.

 

He was frozen to the spot; all his instincts of preservation _clawing, screeching_  at him to do _something_. He made a mistake of being able to breathe – it seemed like the dust-like substance was looking for an opening – and with one solitary inhale, his vision went white hot.

 

 

The house at the very edge of the district grew absolutely quiet. Two carcasses – one of in a state of sloppy dismemberment; the other with a broken spine – and one living creature.

It was looking in wonder, at the caked blood under the fingernails of its new host.

 

A voice – _his_   _own voice_ – reverberated across the room and in his mind:

 

 

_“Let’s find our friends, Eliot. Together.”_

**Author's Note:**

> thank you, everyone who got to the end of this atrocity. you're the true mvps! c:
> 
> and i'm sorry!! i'll try and rebut this one by writing something more – _sunny?_ idk anymore
> 
>  
> 
> p.s.: all the info pertaining to bee-keeping & human anatomy is not necessarily true to life.  
> facts about bees are taken from [here](https://straightfromthefarm.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/17-random-facts-about-honeybees/);  
> and i've only chosen Idaho because, apparently, it's the leader of the potato production in the U.S. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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